Uday Shankar's Kalpana to screen at Cannes

MUMBAI: Noted dancer Uday Shankar-directed Kalpana has been chosen to screen at the Cannes Film Festival this year as part of Cannes Classics.

The story of Kalpana revolves around a young dancer‘s dream of setting up an academy. It starred his wife Amala Shankar and him as leads and had the 17-year-old Padmini in her screen debut. The whole film was written at Uday Shankar‘s dance academy in Almorah that later became the hub of future artistes of India.

In 2009, the film process of digital restoration of Kalpana was taken up by NFAI in collaboration with France-based Thomson Foundation and in the next year was restored by the World Cinema Foundation of which Martin Scorsese happens to be a founding member.

The Cannes Classics 2012 programme includes 13 feature films, two shorts, a mini-concert and four documentaries. All these films will be world premieres. Some of the other films to be screened in this section are: Once Upon a time in America by Sergio Leone, Tess by Roman Polanski, Jaws by Steven Spielberg, The Ring by Alfred Hitchcock, Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean and Runaway Train by Andrei Konchalovsky.